Major gainers in early trade included Dr Reddy’s, SunPharma, Lupin, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Kotak Bank and SBI, rising by up to 7.66 per cent.

Stocks of auto makers such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, and Bajaj Auto were in better form and rose up to 1.66 per cent ahead of August month’s sales numbers, to be released later in the day.

India’s GDP growth slumped to a three-year low of 5.7 per cent during April-June lagging China for the second straight quarter as manufacturing slowed ahead of the GST launch amid demonetisation effect.

Among other Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.20 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.31 per cent, while Shanghai Composite index rose 0.39 per cent in early trade.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.25 per cent higher in Thursday’s trade.